Many portable communications devices use some variety of transducer. A transducer can include such devices as a microphone to convert acoustic energy to electrical energy or a speaker to convert the electrical energy back to acoustic energy. Ideally, it is important to achieve some type of predetermined frequency response and gain from these devices in order for the communications device to operate most effectively. A transducer with a wide frequency response enables a complete spectrum of audio frequencies to be reproduced which are typically between 300 to 3000 Hertz (Hz). However, the acoustic responses of these transducer devices unfortunately are non-ideal, inconsistent and often have poor operational characteristics. This is due to such things as environmental factors, the mechanical placement of the transducer and/or variations in their manufacture.
For example, a typical microphone used in a two-way radio device often can have a gain of +/−3 decibel (dB) as specified by most manufacturers. In the design and operation of two-way radio or cellular devices, this can make it difficult to electrically balance audio to the input circuitry of the device. This is due to wide variations in both microphone gain and frequency response. This same example is also applicable to the communications speaker output which often causes a user using numbers of similar types of communications equipment difficulty in maintaining a similar operating radio when comparing two devices. More often than not, this causes the user to falsely determine that a radio is defective when in-fact only slight acoustic variations in operation between either microphone or speaker cause each radio to sound differently to the user.
Therefore, the need exists to provide a system for acoustic microphone and speaker calibration that will enable an electronic device to operate consistently regardless of slight operational dissimilarities between the microphone and speaker components.